ON TRANSPORTATION. 493 public business ; he would, however, talre care that the return to 1786 it should be made with all possible dispatch. At the same time he thought the noble lord would do well if he would make the House acquainted at present with the nature of the motion that be intended to propose on a future day. Lord BEA.UOHAMP replied that as his motion would in a great measure depend on the 'nature of the return, he could not, until he should have seen that return, gratify the wish of the right hon. gentleman. Some motion, however, would be absolutely necessary. The transportation of felons had generally been to places within Rumoured the dominions of his Majesty ; but, if report spoke truth, Govern- iSSJto*^ ment had in contemplation to send them to the coast of Africa, and Ainoa. to form a colony of them out of Uie British territories. This appeared to him a subject well worthy of inquiry. Mr. Burke said that the design of sending the felons to Africa was of a very serious nature ; it would affect not only the present unfortunate wretches who were under sentence of transportation, but also future generations of convicts, if the idea of colonising Africa with felons should be once adopted. He could not reconcile inhuman it with justice, that persons whom the rigour of the law had spared p~p**^- from death should, after a mock display of mercy, be compelled to undergo it by being sent to a countiy whei^e they could not live, and where the manner of their death might be singularly horrid ; so that the apparent mercy of transporting those wretched people to Africa might with justice be called cruelty ; the merciful gal* lows of England would rid them of their lives in a far less dreadful manner than the climate or the savages of Africa would take them. Mr. Pitt interrupted Mr. Burke by observing that he was Asmming assuming facts without any better authority than report; he*^** thought therefore it would be more proper for the ri^t hon. gentleman to wait till he should have seen the return called for by the noble lord. Mr. Burke said that though there was no question actually under discussion, he was not of opinion that in anything he had said he had been out of order. The situation of the felons who were to be transported called for immediate attention : he understood that seventy-five of them were now on board a ship which might sail before morning, and the wind would soon carry them out of the reach of the interposition of Parliament. He was now appealing Appeal for to the Minister for his interference ; the King by his coronation ™®"^* oath had bound himself to execute judgment in mercy; and the right hon. gentleman was the trustee of his Majesty's oath. There were, at the moment that he was speaking, nests of pestilence in the country ; the gaols were crowded beyond measure ; there was a house in London which consisted at this time of just five hundred crowded and fifty-eight members ; he did not mean the House of Commons fs^^ (though the numbers were alike in both), but the gaol of Newgate. Digitized by Google
